


Spoons In The Drawer

by hostagesfic



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Curtain Fic, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Light Angst, M/M, Zayn/Danny if you squint, but mostly this is about boys needing boys and boys taking care of boys, implied Zayn/Liam, implied past Liam/Danielle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-02-26
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hostagesfic/pseuds/hostagesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn sets a cup of tea down in front of him with a clink, nods at the creamy swirls around the top when Liam looks up questioningly. “Three sugars and milk,” he repeats, dutiful, and Liam smiles around the rim of his cup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spoons In The Drawer

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely indulgent domestic fic for P, since she is sick and miserable.

 

“I think,” Liam says, and then doesn’t, bites his lip instead and Zayn lets him in anyway, closing and locking the door behind them. He follows Liam across his foyer and living room and towards the stairs to the guest bedroom, and then Liam stops abruptly and swivels, eyebrows everywhere and face torn. “Sorry,” he says, “God, I’m being so rude, Zayn, sorry, d’you have anyone over?”

Zayn shakes his head, says, “Just you, really,” and then amends, “Ant’s in there now though, his mum kicked him out, sort of.”

“Oh,” Liam pauses, trying to remember if he knew this, feeling immediately guilty for not knowing that one of Zayn’s best friends is now living with him. “Fuck, I should’ve gone to Harry’s and used the spare key, he’s never there and it would’ve been better.”

“Easier, maybe,” Zayn shrugs, reaches out and pulls Liam’s backpack off his shoulder easily, “Not better.”

;

Zayn fixes them two cups of tea in the way that Zayn does anything; with sweet intentions but rather vague in the process. He gets out two mugs and then puts the kettle on and gets out another two mugs. He digs through his canister of tea and sets out the bags by the first set of mugs, then gets out spoons and puts them in the second.

Liam only half watches, taking in the new additions to their surroundings as Zayn hums idly and pads about his industrial kitchen. There are drawings on the fridge, a family portrait by Safaa and an abstract grid of the London skyline that could be by any one of the house’s three regular occupants, a wrinkled picture of the boys at some event, snapped by a mum, probably. There are bottle cap magnets and scrabble tile magnets spelling out FUCK and RUM and HARMONY, and there’s a picture of Zayn and Perrie with their arms around each other, and there’s a picture of Danny and Zayn and Ant, with Danny’s hand in Zayn’s hair and Zayn’s arms around his waist and Ant’s fingers under the hem of his shirt. Liam looks away and the rest of the house is an extension of the fridge; a macrocosm of the messy collage, the people that Zayn loves and the people who love Zayn.

Zayn sets a cup of tea down in front of him with a clink, nods at the creamy swirls around the top when Liam looks up questioningly. “Three sugars and milk,” he repeats, dutiful, and Liam smiles around the rim of his cup.

;

Danny comes in before they’ve finished their tea, and he doesn’t look surprised to see Liam, doesn’t ask why he’s crashing their home, either. He just claps Liam on the shoulder and kisses Zayn’s cheek, ducks around him at the counter to begin spreading take out boxes on the island, gathering plates and silverware. Nothing Danny does is haphazard, and he sighs a bit over the mugs Zayn left on the counter earlier, puts them and the extra spoons away and the lid back on the canister, and unplugs the kettle and pours out the extra water. Liam thinks he maybe could’ve done all of those things, but he didn’t think of them, and Zayn doesn’t act like he was supposed to, either. Danny doesn’t mention it, just ducks into the pantry to get extra napkins, and then he’s saying, “So, either of you going to get the kid?”

Zayn meanders away to climb halfway up the stairs and then yell for Ant, and there’s a clatter and a sharp sort of thump before they both tumble into the kitchen. Zayn’s in a headlock, and Ant is muttering something about who the kid is now, but when he sees Liam he lets Zayn up immediately, grinning. “Oh, didn’t know you were here. When’d you get here? You staying?”

It’s more than Danny’s said in the whole ten minutes he’s been home, more than Zayn’s said in the last thirty minutes since Liam’s arrived, and it takes a minute to process. Liam nods, slowly, swallowing the last of his tea, and taking his mug to the sink. Ant wrinkles his nose up and moves right along, says, “Oi, is that chinese?”

“Thai,” Danny corrects, mildly. “No complaining.”

“Thai,” Ant repeats. “Jesus.”

“Buddha,” Zayn says, and Danny laughs like it’s a joke.

Ant looks at Liam and Liam shrugs, and Ant says, “Get it? Cause it’s like- nevermind.”

Liam does get it, eventually, and laughs around a mouthful of his noodles, makes them all stare and then join in.

Maybe it doesn’t matter that it takes so long, he thinks, then, looking across the carpet at Zayn, with his crinkly eyes and graceful fingers clicking his chopsticks together ridiculously. Maybe it just matters that he gets there.

;

“I’ll bunk with Ant tonight,” Danny says, when he and Liam are clearing the kitchen counter after dinner, and Liam isn’t sure if it’s even directed at him, but he nods. He can never really tell, with Danny; Danny just says things like they’re decisions and then they happen. Liam wishes he had that sort of finality, that sort of assurance, but he’s never met anyone else quite like Danny, so maybe it’s a unique trait, one that isn’t possible in other people.

From the living room, Zayn calls for their presence and more beer, and Ant seconds his demands with a war whoop and a challenge for Danny to beat his score in whatever they’re playing at the moment. Danny doesn’t bother responding, but he does grab three longnecks from the fridge and then motion at Liam, “There’s more if you want one, wasn’t sure if you’re drinking or not now.”

Liam isn’t sure either, so he shakes his head and follows Danny to the living room empty-handed.

;

Zayn falls asleep on Danny’s shoulder while Liam and Ant are battling for new high score. They don’t realize it, and Danny doesn’t mention it, so it’s only when Liam turns to complain, “He’s cheating-” that he sees Zayn’s pale, slack face and goes quiet. There’s something about Zayn when he’s asleep, and there always has been, but it’s more pronounced when he’s at home. Zayn can fall asleep anywhere, does, but he looks like he’s meant to be, here, body gone soft against Danny’s side, fingers twined in the slouchy front pocket of his sweatshirt.

Ant crows in victory and knocks Liam’s thigh with his knee, and Liam grins, acknowledges defeat, ignores Danny’s considering look. They play another round and then Ant is yawning, tossing his controller aside to finish off his beer, mutter something about rehearsals early, how he needs to get some sleep.

Liam watches the automated screens play for a minute, still holding his own controller, and listens to Zayn’s deep, regular breathing from behind him on the couch.

Danny shoves at his shoulder, when the music’s restarted twice, and clears his throat. “Better take this ‘un t’bed, Payne,” he says. “Off day for you lads tomorrow but he still needs rest. Doesn’t look like it could hurt you either.”

Liam thinks that’s probably- it’s probably Danny’s way of saying that he’s noticed the redness in Liam’s eyes, the bags underneath them, the way he obviously hasn’t shaved in days.

“I don’t wanna put you out,” Liam says, slowly, because he’s never known quite how to apologize to Danny for the times when he steals Zayn from him. He’s never really been clear on how much of Zayn belongs to Danny, how much he’s really putting Danny out when he spends the night or interrupts an evening in.

Danny just smiles, a twitch of the lips, and pulls Zayn up with him off the couch, as Liam rises. “Nah,” he says. “No worries.” Zayn makes a disgruntled sound but doesn’t open his eyes, sways between them until Danny pushes him forward into Liam’s chest, squeezes his arm as he lets him go and turns to the stairs. “G’night, jaan, ‘night Liam. He keeps the toothpaste under th’sink.”

;

By the time they’ve brushed their teeth and washed their faces, taking turns at the sink with the kind of precision that comes of having shared bathrooms too many times to count, Zayn is nearly awake again. Awake enough to realize that the reason Liam is standing beside his bed in apparent discomfort is because he’s just found that he forgot pajamas (again). He doesn’t say anything, just hands Liam a shirt and a pair of boxers and goes around to the other side of the bed, strips off facing his huge, shuttered windows. Liam watches the curl of his spine, the dips of his lower back and the- Liam pulls his own shirt off over his head and tugs Zayn’s on, changes his pants and crawls into bed.

Zayn follows him and they settle easily, facing each other on their sides, Zayn’s fingers pinching his pillow down so he can look at Liam. His eyes are lighter, somehow, in the dim light when he’s turned off the overhead and left on only the bedside lamp, golden against the winter pale of his skin and the salmon of his sheets. Liam can’t hide from him, like this, like he can behind a teacup or a take-out box or a game controller, and he just looks back, knows his gaze isn’t as steady as Zayn’s.

“I think,” he begins, and can’t end, because to end the statement is to acknowledge that this is the end, and even though he thinks he knows that, now, he’s not ready to face it.

Zayn just watches him, absolutely silent but for the whisper sound of his lips parting, his measured exhale. He reaches out for Liam and Liam doesn’t want to give in so easily, but he does, curling forward into the slender bracket of Zayn’s hold, Zayn’s strong fingers on his arms and Zayn’s bony elbows at his ribs, breath warm against the side of his face where Liam’s turned away.

“We’re done again,” he says, after a while, when he can feel Zayn’s quiet leading up to something, and has to preempt it. “Again.”

“Again,” Zayn repeats, and it seems like its been so long since Liam heard his voice that it’s hard to decipher, hard to know if Zayn sounds sad or disappointed or sympathetic or surprised.

“I don’t know why it doesn’t work,” Liam says, softly, and lowers his head to Zayn’s chest. He’s suddenly so tired that it’s like Zayn’s sleepiness from earlier has leeched into his body without warning, and it’s an effort to hold himself back, to keep his body tensed and held together.

Zayn reaches up and presses his palm to the back of Liam’s head, fingers sinking in the fuzzy hair. His hand is warm, like the rest of him, an oven of comfort against the noise in Liam’s brain and the static in his nerves, and Liam wants Zayn to swallow him up like this, wants to let him.

“Dammit, Liam,” Zayn murmurs, soft like I love you, and Liam can’t go so easy, resists when Zayn tries to pull back and shift him around. Zayn pinches his side, kicks his thigh with a sharp knee, and Liam hisses.

“Let me be the big fucking spoon for once,” Zayn says, and pushes him over, melds himself to Liam’s back and presses his nose hard into Liam’s back, draws up his knees so Liam has to curl up, too.

Liam takes a shuddering breath and closes his eyes, waits for Zayn to say something more.

It never comes, and he slowly, carefully lets himself go, relaxes until they’re sharing a breathing pattern instead of just a bed, until he can feel Zayn’s ribs against his back like the spine he can’t find in himself.

Lets himself feel strong and safe and warmed, and Zayn breathes against his neck, says, “You’re okay.” Liam lets himself believe it.


End file.
